We are planning to get a backup server at Amazon EC2. As per my finding, Amazon supports only SQL Standard version. Can someone please help me with the above question. And, will any services be affected in SharePoint on SQL Standard version?

Are any SharePoint services affected when I use SQL Standard?
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neo269Nov 7 '12 at 16:55

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No, it is a less restricted version of the minimum.
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Hugh WoodNov 7 '12 at 16:59

Thanks... So basically, the Standard version is trimmed down version of Enterprise... Rest all should work perfectly...
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neo269Nov 7 '12 at 17:02

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Yes it works just fine, Enterprise would be for large deployments that use a database cluster over of larger than 2 servers, and some quality of life things like "Hot add Memory and CPU". Read here: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993.aspx
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Hugh WoodNov 7 '12 at 17:11

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As Hugh mentioned, the Enterprise edition allows you to scale up the SQL Server, allowing you to add more memory and CPU core to the SQL Server and do more enterprise level stuff. Unless you are deploying a large scale SP farm then you do not need the Enterprise edition. Enterprise edition is a lot more expensive; and it gets really expensive as you add more processor core. In your case, I would go with the Standard edition of SQL Server 2008 (or 2008 R2 or 2012). Avoid the Express edition if you can because sooner or later you will hit the express edition limitations.
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Hossein AarabiNov 7 '12 at 19:53